


Weakness

by Anuna



Series: Monsters [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angry!sex, Angst, F/M, Morally Dubious Decisions, Skye's POV, monsters verse, some day you'll understand, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, what happens when skye has to choose the lesser evil, you woke up a weakness inside of me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 04:40:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2137308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anuna/pseuds/Anuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He taught her how to disarm, how to take aim, but nobody taught her how to shoot someone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weakness

**Author's Note:**

> I deeply apologize for the feels. I'll fix it. 
> 
> Now if only the show would fix them. (You see why I write these things?)

This is how she falls. 

When Coulson says they need to track a dangerous Hydra agent, she's on it. She works for twenty hours and finally tracks this guy to his small home town where he apparently hopes to take refuge. 

Talbot takes over from there. 

In less than three hours the town is occupied. 

Streets and squares and stores are searched. When their suspect isn't found, Talbott orders the lockdown. 

A small voice inside Skye wants to speak. Coulson orders her to create a false news feed. She waits a moment, thinks of Fitz in his wheelchair and of Simmons, thinks of the Academy and the Hellicariers crashing into Potomac river. 

She does as she's asked. 

At the same time Talbott orders everyone in town to be locked and questioned, families separated, children removed from the safety of their parents. 

And all the while Skye works. If she later hears crying she tells herself it has to be done, that they have to find said Hydra agent, that he is dangerous and plans detonating a bomb in one or another large city in Europe. 

Ten hours later they still don't have the guy. 

Eighteen hours later he's unceremoniously left in front of the courthouse, from which Talbott is running his operations. He's tied from head to toe and his mouth is duct – taped. 

Skye sees him from the window as the soldiers are picking him up and her stomach twists. Nobody has to tell her who left him there, wrapped like an early Christmas present. Later that day Fitz slants a disappointed look at them all, refraining from any sort of comment. Despite that Skye already knows what he would say (and what Coulson would answer. _We're not going to ask him to help us._ )

*

She's tired and yet she goes to punch her frustration out. The boxing bag is still there – sad and still and lonely. It bounces around her as if its mocking her. Behind it she sees an echo of the man who lied to her and wormed his way into her heart, who trained her and convinced her she deserved to belong. 

Focus on your anger. Remove everything else. 

May's voice is clear and certain, like a safety rope. It's decisive, definite, devoid of emotion. 

In front of her a pair of brown eyes looking at her with concern. 

_Some day you'll understand._

*

Then she dreams about Battleship. In her dream Ward sits across from her and laughs his uncomfortable laugh, but his eyes crinkle. It looks genuine, it looks real. His face is clean and whole, and in her dream she teases him and laughs, but she wakes up crying. 

*

“It's normal to grieve,” May tells her one day. Skye startles. It's as if her mind has been read and she wonders if May saw the picture. The one she took with the laptop camera in that diner, when Ward trusted her so much (so stupidly) and didn’t suspect a thing. 

“I'm not grieving,” Skye insists. 

“You are,” May's voice gains a deeper, serious note. It's subdued compassion, it's there but not out in the open and it reminds her of Ward, because he was like this too. ( _We're all cut of the same cloth_.)

(Everything reminds her of Ward.) 

Skye feels defeated, but then May offers her an out. 

“He doesn't deserve it.”

And that's what Skye tells herself at night before she falls asleep. 

It helps with her anger. It helps her to tell herself that he never deserved any of it, any of her; of her friendship, or trust or compassion. He deserves a punishment, and hate, and to be forgotten. 

It doesn't help with the dreams. 

*

There are bitter pills to swallow. 

You don't think when someone is after you, May says. You don't think when they're pointing the gun. You shoot, because if you won't, they will. 

And Skye knows it's the truth. 

*

Coulson hands her a list of written instructions. She recognizes the form by now – and something inside of her twitches in protest, but she pushes that tiny voice deep down. She knows military phrasing – and sees Talbott's imprints all over the memo. 

“It's a matter of public security,” Coulson says. 

“I understand,” she says. What it truly is, is placing false information, misleading people, restricting true information. Calling lies the truth. 

Skye holds a sigh. She remembers the moment when he handed her the SHIELD badge, remembers the light and proud feeling seizing her chest, and the knowledge that she belonged, and that she'd earned it. That same badge sits heavily in her memory now. When you receive something, you give up on something else in return. 

Skye powers up her laptop and starts working. 

Fifteen minutes after she's done she' observes the reaction. She reads a flood of comments in which majority is buying all the falsified reports she placed online. There are a few smart enough to sniff out a lie, and she is already taking steps to prevent them to find out more. (She can never be sure if one of them is, possibly, a member of the Rising Tide, or some similar group). 

You're a serial killer, she said to Ward. 

She wonders what this makes her. 

*

She runs into him on a rooftop. She is alone, and he is alone, and the way he's holding the gun is wrong. He couldn't shoot anyone like that, much less her. (He made sure, after all, that she knows how to escape). 

The way she's holding her own gun is completely different. 

“Are you going to do it?” he asks. He even smirks. 

She frowns. Anger floods her like a tidal wave. How dare he? 

“Are you sticking around to check?”

His expression changes – it happens subtly but then suddenly his face seems to catch the shadows and light in a completely different manner, and the thing is, she sees something like pity on his face.

“You're all insane if you go with the plan,” he says, as if he knows the plan. 

“I don't know what you're talking about,” she says flatly, just as May would. She doesn't even blink. ( _You don't hesitate. You just shoot._ )

And the thing is, she could. He's armed. He could shoot at her. (But he won't shoot at her.)

 _He's the enemy, Skye_.

“Oh, you do know,” he says, quiet, and his voice sounds dangerous like that. “That base you're planning to raid? You won't find anything that's worth, and you'll be walking straight into a trap.”

“And I should listen to Raina's favorite lapdog, shouldn't I?” 

His look is calculated and drawn but she can feel the cracks, She knows him, she knows the tiny signs of frustration slipping in. She can still get to him. 

“I'm trying to protect you,” he bites out. 

“Oh, like you were protecting me when the psycho you followed had me shot?”

“I _was_ protecting you,” he insists. She can trace the weakness in his voice. The mask on his face falls apart and the frustration is apparent now. She would count it as a victory, only it reminds her of their days in the cargo hold, of her unwillingness to properly punch, or rather, determination to drive him up the wall in every way possible. 

And here is a thing. If he'd been lying? He wouldn't look like this. 

_He's an enemy_ she repeats to herself. 

“You can listen to me,” he says. “Or you can all risk your heads going in.”

And then he disappears and she's left staring down the barrel of a gun. _Do you have what it takes to pull the trigger?_

*

Next time she holds a gun in her hand she doesn't have much choice. 

It's the gas, and it's not the usual kind of tear gas. She's coughing and she's fighting a wave of nausea and fatigue, slumping against a wall when she hears footsteps, and there is nowhere to run or hide. She's losing eyesight. The hallway is swimming in a sea of blur, but she can see, as she blinks, that a man in front of her is raising a gun. 

_You don't think._

And she doesn't. 

When she fires, the force of the weapon discharging sends her backwards against the wall, and while she's crumpling onto the floor, she hears the sickening sound of a human being choking to death, not a couple of steps away. 

Skye finds out, as she doubles and throws up, that thinking part comes later. 

*

When a par of hands grabs her, she doesn't see a thing. 

She doesn't feel, and cannot move, she cannot think. She's cold and shaking and she's numb. Her hands flail, landing against someone solid and human. 

“Calm down,” Ward says and panic seizes her. No, she thinks, not him, no. “Skye,” he grabs her hand and avoids a punch, she tugs herself free. He catches her again and holds her more securely this time. “Skye. They've thrown the blinding gas on you. It's temporary. Calm down.”

He sounds patient and reasonable, he sounds like her SO, and he has no right to. 

“Leave me alone, let me go,” she demands, trying to free herself, but he is taller and stronger, and eventually her back ends up against his front. 

“Stop it, Skye,” he says. “Stop it. Your team has left -”

“You're lying!”

“No,” he says. “They left because they had to, they'd end up blown up,” he's explaining while she's trashing against him. She wonders where her gun is and remembers the coughing sounds, remembers what she's done. 

“They wouldn't leave me,” she insists. 

“They had to leave you -”

“No!”

They're her home, they're her family. She trusts them. 

But Talbott is running the operation. She clenches her fists, tenses her muscles, but all of that frustration ends up stuck high in her throat. He holds her firmly against his chest and she's shaking. 

“Let's go Skye,” he says and she tries to tug herself free again. 

_“No.”_

She hears an exasperated sigh he should hold no right over. 

“You can't stay here because the next person who walks through that door will kill _you_.” 

And without further discussion he takes her with him. 

*

She's disoriented and her eyesight is still blurry, but Skye is not staying here with him any longer. He can't stop her. She's disoriented and she's trying to locate her belongings and she doesn't know this room, but it smells of him, it feels like him and fuck, she's not staying here one minute longer. 

“What are you doing?” he demands like he has right to.

“Leaving,” she says. She can almost feel his tension. 

“You're not going anywhere,” he says. 

“Like hell I'm not,” she retorts, knowing that he would position himself in front of the door. “Move away or I'll move you.”

He has the audacity to smirk in her face. “Have you forgotten everything I taught you? We have safe houses for a reason -”

“There is no 'we', Ward -” she retorts and she feels triumph when he flinches. But it doesn't throw him completely, thus he stubbornly continues. 

“The safe houses exist _for a reason_ , Skye. Those guys out there and they're looking for you, and they're surveying all the possible routes the team could have taken. They'll find you as soon as you reach the city and start searching for Coulson!”

“I can handle myself, Ward,” she insists. 

“And those guys can handle you -”

“You would know it, wouldn't you,” she says in a mean tone. He gets into her face and she realizes just how tall he is. 

“Yes I do,” he breathes dangerously. “Luckily for you.”

“I don't need protecting, Ward,” she insists. 

“Did May teach you to be ridiculous like this? To think you can go against any danger on your own?”

“Don't you dare speak about May like that,” she says, fumes and pushes against him but he doesn't budge. “Get _out of my way_ , Ward.”

She intends it to be a hard slap, but it lands nowhere near his face. Instead he catches her wrist and she remembers just how _strong_ he is – and then he pulls. 

Shew crashes against him and his lips crash against hers, and there's nothing gentle about it. The way he kisses her might well leave a bruise, but for some inexplicable reason her brain stops and her knees buckle and then his tongue is in her mouth – because she let it in. She must be crazy because she moans and then her fist is full of his shirt and she pulls him closer. He literally devours her, hungry and almost desperate. When she pulls back she's breathing hard, she's furious at him, and she's _turned on_. 

How dare he?

His eyes are burning and he's not even trying to hide it. Is this is how he wants to play the game? Fine, she can take him. 

She fists his shirt and pulls, and before Ward is able to do anything, she's kissing him again to make his knees go weak. Because that's what she is – his weakness. And she absolutely doesn't pull any punches; she keeps kissing and tugging closer, until there isn't a sliver of space between them. She feels him growing hard against her stomach and he groans into her mouth when she shifts against him. 

Perfect. 

Oh, how she'll teach him not to mess with her. 

He digs fingers into her ass. His stubble is rough against her cheeks and when it rasps against her skin she shivers. She's not about to give him opportunities, she's going to be the one ahead. The one on top. When she pulls him, he follows, his mouth on hers when she guides him towards the bed. When his knees hit the mattress she pulls away to give him a nice view of herself taking off her shirt. She can practically see his eyes darken. She's sure that he stands no chance, so when he comes close, when he grabs her she goes, but she's forgotten he has cards up his sleeve. There's a way he kisses, unassuming and straightforward, with zero finesse and hundred percent conviction and it leaves her weak in the knees, and damn him, she's forgotten. (That's a lie. She didn't.) His lips are insistent and he's holding her in place and the feeling of him kissing her, the way he tastes, all so familiar, it's pulling her under. She can't let him. She _won't_ let him. 

He's making it hard. He won't let her more than sips of air. She's starting to feel dizzy when he leaves her mouth for her neck, pulls her to stand between his legs. Her bra is suddenly gone, his stubble rough against her breast. She's struggling against the feeling of his teeth, of his tongue and mouth so warm and wet; and she's tugging at his shirt. It slides up his back and arms. Skye pauses – she's seen him shirtless before, but it was different, it was never two of them hate stripping each other trying to see who'll crumble first. 

He opens her pants. His tongue is in her navel and his fingers against her back, rubbing up her spine and then pulling her pants down. She has to hold her breath. She'd be collapsing if it weren't for his hands, and he's grinning at her, the bastard, and his teeth in the fabric of her panties. 

She can't let him win. She'll wipe that stupid cocky smirk off his face. She grabs his hair when he comes up, drags him back to her mouth enough to distract him and push him down onto bed. There's a sense of power that comes with his blatant stare – she is naked and she crawls over him, she undresses him and he holds his breath. 

Skye doesn't think from there. He sits up to pull her close, tugs at her lips and finds that spot on her neck that makes her eyes roll and her head fall back. He drags his teeth along her neck, licks a hot and wet trail up to her lips and she brands him with her fingernails wherever she can reach. When she flicks a nipple with her fingers he groans and buries his face in the hollow of her throat, repeats her name like it's some kind of prayer. She won't listen to him, she can't, so she shuts him up with her mouth on his. He's hard beneath her, twitching against her thigh, and when she takes him in her hand and guides him inside her body, he gasps and shivers. 

It's the most vicious fuck of her life, hard and intense and sloppy, because they're grabbing and struggling and there are long and filthy kisses and his hand in her hair, a tight fist holding her in place. The other desperately clutching the sheet beneath him as she rides him, trying to make him go faster. She wants to fuck him out of his mind, she wants to ruin him, punish him, show him what he could have had. He is powerful beneath her, all coiled and tense muscles and sharp edges she doesn't need to call from her memory – even though she hasn’t been near him in months, his body is like a map she knows by heart. She presses but he resists, pulling her with him and holding her in place to kiss her slowly, the way that makes them both moan. 

She stops and pulls back and he stops too and she watches. She remembers cargo bay, and she remembers battleship and beserker staff and sandwiches and scrabble games, remembers it all and he's still familiar, and whisper in her ear and voice inside her mind – and he is _inside_ of her. 

It's a thought that makes her throat tight. 

He raises up to kiss her, hand in her hair and another on her breast and then between their bodies as he rocks slowly, and the pressure builds. She grabs his shoulders and kisses him back, and if she can't make him scream she will at least enjoy, she will fuck him and take what she likes and oh god, she does like it, she does, _she does_. She shouldn't but he does something, shifts and then he's touching her, pressing his thumb where she needs it the most and groaning in her mouth. The sounds he makes run down her spine and coil inside her stomach, build the pressure until she can't take it any more, she can't, she cant -

She screams, digging her fingers into his shoulders and shakes against him as her orgasm rages through her. When she's weak and shivery he carefully holds her, lifts her head to kiss her. It takes just a little bit, just a few erratic movements and then he's gone too, moaning her name and looking absolutely raw and in that moment Skye _knows_ it's not pretend. It's not a game, not a chase for power. Not any more. Instead he surrenders to her and she's not sure what to do or what to think.

She lets herself fall to the bed and catch her breath and as her elation fades the reality reasserts itself. What has she done? How could she do it?

She slept with an enemy. 

She helped lock up innocent people. 

She stood and watched as children were locked away from their parents. 

She shot someone to death. 

_Oh God._

Skye, someone who stood for things that were right. For people to be safe. The hacktivist who prevents people from finding out information, and the truth. 

She bolts upright and swings her feet over to the cold floor. It reminds her that she's naked. Is this who you are Skye? She still hears the guy choking to his death after she shot him, and somehow it's worse than not seeing, not knowing what you've done. She killed a man. She _killed_ a man. It's too big thought, cutting through her mind, refusing to settle. She starts to shake, she needs to go, she needs to leave, wants to run away (wants to hide). Suddenly, there's a warm hand between her shoulder blades. She startles and the realizes that it's him. It's like muscle memory, the calm that spreads from his palm through the tense muscles in her neck. 

“Hey,” he says, “Skye.” 

She turns to look at him. He taught her how to disarm and aim and shoot, but he never taught her how to kill. The gentle expression on his face changes and she wonders is it mirroring hers. The way he looks at her is serious, hard, _sad_ , and that's what makes her crumble. When he leans in and kisses her it's gentle and long, it's soft and kind and warm and everything she shouldn't want. But it's everything she needs, it's solid and familiar and it feels safe. He kisses her again, the same way but deeper, with more compassion, offering her one fixed point amidst the chaos. She falls right in. His hands are so gentle on her face. She kisses back. A tear rolls down her cheek and he parts from her to wipe it away with his thumb. 

“Ward,” she starts. She wants to tell him what she's done. She wants to ask him things she can't even say. She wants all of this to stop, and doesn't know how to say it, but it seems that he _understands_. When he kisses her it feels like he's right there with her, right there where it hurts the most. When he pulls her down to him she goes, and she lets him roll them over so he's on top this time. 

He kisses her tears away. He kisses down her neck and between her breasts and then stops at her stomach, his finger tracing the scars. Skye looks at him, the way he doesn't dare touching it, the way he bows his head until his forehead lays where her wounds were, and another thing inside her chest shatters. 

_No_ , she thinks. _Please don't do this, please don't lie to me._

When he looks up, his eyes are shiny and wet. And he doesn't say anything but the way he looks at her hits her square in the chest. She reaches for his face, caresses his cheek and the cut that hasn't faded. He kisses her palm and then kisses the scars on her sternum and it feels like something is over. Like she's letting go, but she's not sure of what, and she's scared, she's terrified, and he is the only solid thing she can hold on to. 

His lips move lower and she lets herself follow, focuses on the exchange between soft and rough, on gentle pull of his teeth and the way his lips seal themselves against her right hip. He spreads her legs gently and she's shaking with anticipation, desperate for something to distract her, to make her thoughts stop and go away, so when he finally puts his mouth on her, she screams. 

He's slow, careful, generous; he's _everything_ she ever imagined he'd be with her. He makes sure to follow her every cue, every moan and every instance when she cries his name. He asks if she likes this or that, asks her what she wants, and she's the one who struggles for words while he soothes. She comes against his mouth and fingers, crying out to the ceiling of his hideout. Then he's above her, careful not to crush her with his weight. He's so gentle, and she needs just the opposite, she needs him to make her scream. He slows her frantic kiss. He's huge and warm and heavy, he smells like everything familiar and good and that _hurts_. She can't fight this, can't fight him, she needs him, needs him to help her, needs him to show her how to deal with this. 

She lets go. Control is too much to hold onto and she puts it into his hands, and it seems that he senses the shift within her when it happens. She trusts him and she's terrified and she loves the way he steals her breath, the way he tugs at her lips and plays with her breast, keeps her so distracted that she almost doesn't notice when he settles between her legs and pushes inside her. 

She gasps and he pauses. 

“Hurts?” he asks softly, and it feels like they've done this a thousand times before. Skye shakes her head. 

“No,” she says and meets his eyes. He's so close, _so close_. She's losing herself in his eyes, she's trying to reassert the reality of past few months, the warnings, the notions why this should be wrong; but nothing comes back. None of it. There's nothing but him and her right here. “Just -” her eyes fall, leave the safety of his gaze. He gives her a slow kiss and for a moment she almost believes everything will somehow right itself. 

(The world outside doesn't exist.)

“I'm right here,” he says, but those words sound like so much more, and she nods, closing her eyes and failing to kick what her gut tells her – that he'll protect her, that he _cares_. She tightens her arms around him, as far as they go, and hides away against his shoulder, letting everything just fall away. 

After, she lets him pull her close against him and rests her face against his chest. Inside her the storm is dulled to a bearable level, and voices echo through her mind; memories flash without leaving a trace or a scar. She's not numb, she's just comfortably lulled into the hum of her body and wrapped in warmth. 

_Some day you'll understand._

Skye curls more closely into Grant - her former SO, her protector, her friend. 

What was it that Ian Quinn told her once? That SHIELD preys on the lonely and offers them home. What he possibly implied remains – they give you one thing and take away from you another.

She had changed. She knows it, deep in her muscles and bones. She shifted, adjusted, reprogrammed herself; let herself be reprogrammed. Ward was there. Ward was the one who did it. His voice is still the one she hears telling her to take cover, count to three, watch out. 

And at one point it all became a blur. 

She lost her sight way before that gas bomb was thrown at her. 

*

Two days later, when she tiptoes into a bathroom and the chill settles over her, she still hears the coughing in her mind. She hears it and then doesn't any more, and the cold seeps into her chest. Then she almost wishes she was still in the safe house and Ward was right behind her, to wrap her into his arms and coax her back to bed. 

Instead she washes her hands and neck and face, trying to exorcise his smell and taste from her mind. 

When it doesn't work, she climbs down to the cargo hold and faces the punching bag. In her memory he is still there – his cheeks whole and smooth, his hair a mess and his grey shirt stained with sweat. 

He told her that time before they caught him, that she woke a weakness inside of him. That he wanted something for himself. That he wanted to wake something in her. 

Skye wraps her wrists and holds up her hands, but instead of punching the bag, she wraps her arms around it and tries not to cry. 

Skye wonders if you can say that someone _took_ something from you if you willingly gave it to him. Because, the thing is, he didn't have to try very hard, if at all, to wake up a weakness inside of her. 

It seems that it's been there all along.


End file.
